Nonfiction Article of the Week from The Atlantic: May 2012
1. Read & annotate the article noting:
*Author's Bias(es)
*Tone
*Connections
*Reaction/ Personal Thoughts & Opinions
2. Post on this blog:
Do you believe that sites like Facebook have increased loneliness? Reference the article to support your opinion.
For me, this article was interesting to read because I am a member and avid user of Facebook. Now every time I type in my email and password I'll wonder if I'm logging on to connect with friends or logging on because I'm lonely. The author of this article brings up many fascinating and interesting points. She also questions if Facebook is the cause of our loneliness or if we are bringing the loneliness upon ourselves. One quote from the article says, "Loneliness is certainly not something that Facebook or Twitter or any of the lesser forms of social media is doing to us. We are doing it to ourselves." I completely agree with this statement. Facebook is not the cause of our loneliness. It's our own fault. We cause ourselves to be lonely and we can also get rid of the loneliness by doing something about it.
ReplyDeleteIt's very easy for almost any teenager to connect to this article. Almost every teenager these days has a Facebook and goes on it daily. "...and one of every 13 people on Earth is a Facebook user-log on every day." I can speak for myself and probably many other teens when I say that the only reason I log onto my Facebook is out of pure boredom. When the teacher is rambling on, or I have a long car ride ahead of me, Facebook and Twitter are the first things I look towards to entertain me. Does this mean I'm lonely? Not at all. It just means I'm a bored teenager with a short attention span.
Kelly Smith
Period 1
Love the honesty! Please alert me if I am "rambling on"...ha!
DeleteI feel 99% of high school students can relate to this article in one way or another. Almost every person I know is a member of Facebook or some other social networking site. However, just because we are members of these networks, and a majority of us spend at least a few hours a day simply refreshing our newsfeed, does not mean we are suffering from loneliness.
ReplyDeleteThis article strikes my interest more than any other we have read this year. In fact, while reading this exerpt, I overheard a news station broadcasting a story regarding Facebook research, further proving how prominent social media is in our society. Yet, I feel facebook does not affect our level of "loneliness". I feel as if it is more of a mental state, and when a person becomes lonely, they turn to social networking to relieve their stress. When, in actuality, people become more depressed when they see all the uplifting actions their "friends" are doing.
Tyler King
Good point...which came first...the chicken or the egg?
DeleteSomething to remember when reading this article is that correlation does not mean causation. There were many connections made between people's loneliness and their activity on Social Networking sites such as Facebook made in this article. For example, one of the relationships described was that "Facebook users had slightly lower levels of 'social loneliness'---the sense of not feeling bonded with friends---but 'significantly higher levels of family loneliness'---the sense of not feeling bonded with the family." (66) There is no telling for sure if Facebook causes this difference in family vs. friendly relationships or if the relationship in families causes people to "escape" to Facebook for their friends. The fact that there are two or more different ways to look at the situation only stresses that this finding is only a relationship. The topic is open for debate and discussion.
ReplyDeleteWith this in mind, I do not believe Facebook makes us lonely. It really depends on the individual and how he/she uses it. There was a line in the article I liked that said, "Facebook is merely a tool...and like any tool, its effectiveness will depend on its user." (68) What is meant by this line is that if people decide to use Facebook as a way to enhance their social life in the real world, such as scheduling meet-ups with people, it will enhance their social life. The same directness of outcome occurs if a person uses Facebook just to kill time on the computer; they will kill time on the computer and stagnate the development of their social lives.
To blame Facebook for our loneliness is the same as saying that we have lost control of our lives. Facebook, as advanced of a social device as it is, is manmade. If we can create it, we can destroy it; if it drains countless hours of real life interaction, we can make the decision to step out our doors and counter it. The control over how we use Facebook is totally within our reach. Responsibility is key.
Sidney
Period 1
Very important point---"correlation does not imply causation"...thanks for reminding the class!
Delete“Does Internet make people lonely or are lonely people attracted to the Internet?” I believe the answer is in the question, yes, lonely people are attracted to the Internet, but the attention that they get from outside sources is what keeps them interested. I believe from the beginning Internet has always been a way to escape from every day life and reach out to others we are not able to talk to in our everyday lives. Though the Internet has let us reach further across the world I believe it is distracting us from the relationships that we have right in front of us. I do believe that the Internet has increased loneliness because of how much we have come to rely on the instant gratification of our friends via websites like Facebook. I found this article quite interesting to read because of how true it was, I found myself laughing at certain parts because of how much I could relate to them, for example when Stephen Marche mentions the death of the former playmate Yvette Vickers. Stephen points how oblivious we are to those who surround us until we have reason to pay attention to them. For this reason I believe the internet is useful because of how quickly information travels from person to person, but I also believe that if we did not pay so much attention to the internet then we would have more time to focus on those around us, and maybe that could have helped save Yvette.
ReplyDeleteI believe that over the past few years an increase of internet use has lead us to isolate ourselves from each other not intentionally but because we feel as though we are communicating more so than if we were to have face to face interactions. I believe this article has helped me see how much the Internet is really separating us.
Jennifer Lassman p.1
Can't wait to hear about what other aspects of the article you found humorous...poor Yvette!
DeleteI don’t think Facebook has increased loneliness. As the article mentioned, “you get out only what you put in.” If you use Facebook to actually interact and chat with other people, then you become less lonely. There’s nothing wrong with trying to communicate and have an active conversation online. But if you only use Facebook to read other people’s statuses and to use the “like” button all the time, then it becomes “passive consumption” and “correlates to feelings of disconnectedness.” It depends on how the user uses the website, and not the website itself. I don’t think you can really blame an entire website for increasing people’s loneliness when it really just depends on the person. It shouldn’t come to a surprise either that “people who experience loneliness on Facebook are lonely away from Facebook, too.” Even before Facebook was created, there were many other factors that affected our loneliness. It was our own appetite for independence that really changed things. Maybe the problem is that we’ve taken the idea of self-reliance and self-determination too far to the point that we’ve become lonely and not just merely alone. At the end of the day, it’s about the quality, and not the quantity of how we interact that determines our feelings of loneliness.
ReplyDeleteKelly Du
Although I did enjoy reading this article, I don't think that I can really say I agree with the author. I would definitely say that I applaud her on the grounds of the points in the argument she made, and also the statistics and professional opinions she used, but either way I still really would say I disagree. First off, I'm pretty certain that the author had a bias that favored against Facebook, maybe because she only has 15 Facebook friends, but either way I definitely got the feeling that she was trying to make us look at Facebook in a negative way. I did really enjoy reading about the arguments she made, like I previously stated, especially the interesting ones, an example being that people no longer feel that they have a friend that they can discuss their issues with, I though facts like that were very interesting and helped her argument a lot. However, I would have to say that the view point I agree on is actually from page 3487927487329 in the packet, that was a joke its actually on pages 4-5, but what it states is that Facebook isn't making us lonely, its really just making it easier for people who are shy in the first place to remain shy. No matter how shy you are, you will always have to talk to someone about something and that can make these kind of people very uncomfortable. What Facebook does is give them the option to remain hidden behind a mask and do all of their communications by the stage. But this idea also works in two way, the shy person will remain shy and really develop a rather "lonesome" life style, but someone who is a social butterfly will actually utilize the website. Someone who is naturally social can use Facebook and Twitter to their advantage by being able to socialize with their friends from all over the place, while at the same time creating new relationships and also preserving old ones. All and all, although the author definitely does bring up some good points, I think that she is really judging Facebook to hard and kind of putting the blame on them. What Facebook has done to the world is really connected us and allowed us to intertwine with each others life. Although it can sometimes cause drama in high school, Facebook on a bigger scale has only improved life. We are aloud to keep in contract with friendships that we would have originally lost if Facebook didn't exist. It allows us to keep in contact with family that we can't see in our day to day lives. It also keeps us on tab with what is going on in the world and really can spread ideas faster than any other method in the world. Finally, in the last two years, revolutions have occurred in countries because of what people have discussed on Facebook. The benefits of social networks have just begun to emerge since really the social network has really just been introduced into society, and although there are some negative aspects, the positives definitely out way them.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Ortiz
Period 1
Very funny Edgar...regarding the length of the packet...nice job assessing Marche's argument, tone & bias while also presenting your own opinion.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article, I was rather taken aback by some of the "research" done to prove certain accusations that Marche made. One of the most absurd comments came around the middle of the reading, where Marche tries to answer the equally ridiculous question, "Does the Internet make people lonely, or are lonely people more attracted to the Internet?" An Australian study claims that "Facebook users had slightly lower levels of 'social loneliness' - but 'significantly higher levels of family loneliness' - the sense of not feeling bonded with family." To me, this is a misguided argument that puts blame on the wrong object; I believe that the lack of family bonding is a direct correlation to the way the culture is set up instead of some website that promotes speaking with and keeping updated on the lives of friends, and even family (!?), from all over the world. However, I am completely biased in this viewpoint because I come from a different type of culture where family is valued, in my opinion, in a much different manner than that in the American society. As Marche accurately pointed out, "Today, the one common feature in American secular culture is its celebration of the self that breaks away from the constrictions of the family and the state, and, in its greatest expressions, from all limits entirely." I don't mean to be stereotypical, but I have generally seen that this generation of American children especially has grown very distant from the family, choosing to interact more with friends or wait achingly for the moment when they will graduate, escaping the household in order to venture off into the big, bad world. I see this as a cultural issue as opposed to an issue concerning social networking; I feel that the author simply chose a seemingly valid reason for why families are gradually losing strength in order to bolster his argument about why social networking sites are so terribly unhealthy. I feel that one line in the article really sums up my feelings here: "You get only what you put in." The idea that there is a decline in family bonding is simply due to the lack of effort on the children's end to actually participate in this familial connection. If you actually use Facebook to converse with friends and family, especially those who are far from home, then there is no reason to feel lonely. When one opts for loneliness, then loneliness is what he or she will get.
ReplyDeleteZhanneta.
Period 1.
Although I deleted my facebook about one and a half to two years ago, I don’t think that facebook is the cause of loneliness. I think facebook is great and innovative as it is, but if you use it properly. I do understand the author’s perspective and I do agree to the point where she said research shows that people who have facebooks tend to have more narcissistic personalities etc. I suppose the main reason to upload pictures is to get admiration or comments from other people. You can choose to use facebook effectively or in a way to just waste your time. I believe loneliness depends on the person himself or herself. I think the ultimate goal for facebook is just to keep you in touch with people who you don’t spend time with on a day to day basis and another way of expanding ones connections/friendships.
ReplyDeleteaisha
per1
I must admit, I did find this article to be a bit long for the subject, making pats of it harder to read. However, I understand that the author was passionate about her topic and felt like there was a lot to be said. As an avid user of Facebook, I was curious what insight article would give. Although I think there are more factors to loneliness, I can definitely understand how Facebook can play a role. I got my facebook when I was in 8th grade, which, now, I think is too young. For the past few years I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my facebook. On the positive side, it gives a sense of community and allowed me to connect with my friends outside of school. But sometimes, especially when I was younger, I would log on, see everyone else’s pictures, and start to compare myself to them. I would wonder why I wasn’t invited to a certain party or why my friends had more picture together than they had with me. It could make you feel really lonely and left out. Eventually, especially as I’ve gotten older and more secure in myself, I don’t do that as much. In fact, I’ve found facebook to be so annoying that lately I’ve just been neglecting it. Facebook creates a bubble around all of us. Now almost everyone has one; even kids I babysit are trying to add me! I agree with the author that as a whole, it makes us more lonely.
ReplyDeleteNina Period 1
Well said & honest!
DeleteI was surprised about how much the author had to say about Facebook, but she really did make me think. Merche compared going on Facebook to an addiction like coffee. Personally I don’t think Facebook is an addiction. I think of Facebook as more of a distraction; many people turn to Facebook because of boredom. I do not think Facebook has increased loneliness. In the article Moira Burke states, “Just as your mother said: you get out only what you put in.” I think this is very true and that Facebook is what you make it. It seems like most people use Facebook to talk to people that they are already friends with and to connect to people that they don’t necessarily see on a day-to-day basis. There is nothing wrong with this. Facebook only becomes an issue when people start to choose going online instead of interacting with people face to face. This is what can cause loneliness. Loneliness is a choice that people make. You will not be lonely if you try to have good connections and friendships with people in real life.
ReplyDeleteKelly Loftis
I think the article is very enlightening, all the statics and effects of the Facebook and other socializing websites is analyzed in depth. The author is trying to show us the pros and cons of using these websites but I felt the article was showing more of negative points on these means of communication. I agree that there are many negative effects on people because of these sites but I won’t think the article is showing any positive point in detail like the way it’s showing all the negative points and deeply analyzed.
ReplyDeleteFor me Facebook was a bit of distraction on first few months after creating the account, but now it’s simply a means of communication with friends like all the others. I think it’s a pretty good way of communicating with the friends that don’t live close to you. Because of Facebook I have been able to be connected with all my friends back in Nepal, and I like being connected to them. And Facebook have helped connect people my friend’s uncle met with his life partner through Facebook, it was kind of amazing. They met though Facebook and met in person, fell in love and got married. So I don’t think Facebook is that bad as people think it is.
I think everything has consequences, there is always negative side for everything, and no one can deny that. But like it’s pointed out in the article the “Facebook is merely a tool, like any other tools, its effectiveness will depend on its user”, I don’t think there is much to blame these tools because everyone makes their own choices. But I don’t deny the fact that people are over using all these kinds of sites. The people working for the Facebook website’s job is to attract more people through all different things, that’s their job and we are being attracted to it, so attracted that now internet have become essential part of our life. The think I don’t understand is why this article only focused on Facebook, why not other sites like Twitter. I have seen people tweeting like every other minute with all of their daily schedule and what they are doing and what they are planning and what they are eating and everything. We don’t we take other socializing networks serious as Facebook?
Shila Rajbahak